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Baking with Kids

These are all the blog posts specifically about baking with my sidekick, Little Bread Dude. For most of these recipes he was 4 or 5 years old.

Obviously kids can participate in making any recipe, but some tips for picking a good kid-friendly recipe include:

One that doesn’t take too long to make and bake. A sourdough that takes three days is not a good candidate. A quick bread like muffins or banana bread is a better choice.

One that doesn’t require much technique. A souffle or omelette is not a good candidate. Or you can divide up the tasks and do the technique-heavy parts yourself.

One that has more than a handful of ingredients and uses volume measurements. Yes, it makes more dishes than using weight measurements, but it’s more fun for kids to use every cup and spoon in the drawer, and they can usually measure things out themselves.

One that isn’t harmed by taking more time than usual to make. Recipes that require wet and dry ingredients to be kept separately are good candidates, since you can mix the dry ingredients together first and let them sit for as long as you need them to.

One that is tasty! The best part of baking together is sharing in your creation.

Now, some tips for surviving baking with kids:

Expect mess. Expect that when it’s over, there will be flour on the counter and sugar on the floor. If you think having a helper is going to save you time, you’re going to have to disabuse yourself of that notion now.

Use a stepstool or stepladder to bring your child up to counter height.

Use a bigger bowl than you normally would. That gives you both some breathing room to appreciate exuberant stirring.

Kids are capable of more than you think they are. With proper supervision, LBD has used a small knife to cut soft ingredients, grated nutmeg, and stirred warm ingredients on the stove.

Tools are fun. If you can use a fun tool like a stand mixer, hand mixer, or spice grinder, go for it! LBD has been enjoying using the microwave lately.